Since the bottom dropped out of the
economy in 2008, my family has gone from affluent suburban living to life below the poverty line, in a shabby house in the “wrong” part of town—with no car.
We’ve given up most luxuries, and sold many of our possessions. We’ve become
admirably “green,” as a benefit of paring down to the simplest needs. We have
chickens, a vegetable garden, and a front door that is always open and ready to
welcome a neighbor. People often comment on how we are living with a softer impact
upon the earth. But if I am honest, I have to acknowledge that the most
dramatic changes we have made were those that were forced upon us.

It seems, here, that if we raise our
hand and say, “I need this. Can you help?”—our community collectively
answers, “Yes.”

There are
current circumstances that make poverty easier to weather: The global recession means
that people must come up with creative new resources for surviving, and widespread concern about the
environment makes simple living admirable.

Not long
ago, the thought of going without cable, a car, Internet, and a cool, comfortable home on a hot summer day were unthinkable. As we got
rid of these, one by one, we not only survived but actually found glorious benefits hidden
in each decision. Our struggles have created stronger, quicker, deeper, and
more rewarding bonds with our friends and neighbors. The relationships we now create help us feel more secure in a chaotic world. Our friends are intimately involved with us, and
we rely on each other more than we used to.

A Lively 'HoodOur half-commercial, half-residential neighborhood is charming in a ragged kind of way, with
Bill the tattoo guy across the street; the lawyer’s office with the Asian pear tree next door; the young couple two doors down who never come over without
four cold beers for all of us; Puma (yep) the old hippie with the unused boat,
yellow paint dull and faded; and the single woman at the corner who smokes
cigarettes on the stoop.

We share
our gardens’ harvests with each other and pass lawn tools back and forth. We
borrow friends’ vehicles on rare occasions, and make group Costco trips. Our
household has gotten by with no Internet connection thanks to the generosity of
neighbors and their Wifi, and the availability of free-floating signals from
the library that we can catch on occasion. It seems, here, that if we raise our
hand and say, “I need this. Can you help?”—our community collectively
answers, “Yes.”

On just one block of residential
downtown, we have abundant fruit trees: cherry, apple, pear, Asian
pear, orange, almond, apricot, and lemon. When you need rosemary to season your
dinner, you wander over to the nearest neighbor who has it growing in front of
their house.

The other day, a large
family in a minivan parked in front of our house. The doors slid
open, and happy, giggling people poured out. They waved at us as we peered through the windows, and began to pick some fruit—not a lot—from our
apple and pear trees. It didn’t feel like thievery—there was nothing stealthy
about it. We opened the front door, greeted them, and offered our extension
ladder. The trees belong to all of us.

A Watershed Year, With Few Tears Shed

Things and
people have fallen away, but what has taken their place is everything we didn’t know we needed.

For us, social
resources have proven more valuable to our lives than financial
resources. Or rather, when financial resources are less available, social
resources fill in the gap in a more rewarding way.

Just being open with our needs has resulted in
surprisingly loving connections with those we least expected. Our
letter-carrier was reluctant to deliver the foreclosure notice she worried
would devastate us, and even suggested we not sign for it. The diner owner sent
us on our way after a rare meal out, trusting us to return after our debit card
got unexpectedly declined (turns out it was a clerical error, whew.)

Once we
took the bus to the supermarket, but found out that the bus we had taken to get
there was the last bus running that route, leaving us stranded. There was
a moment of regret and frustration with what sometimes feels like a constant
barrage of small obstacles—until we realized there
were literally half a dozen people who would be able to come scoop us
up in an instant, whenever needed.

I don’t
mean to overstate the case. What with our landlord’s foreclosure crisis, a
scary era when we were waiting for biopsy results, and some thefts we’ve
(thankfully, rarely) endured, there have been threats to safety and security
coming from every direction. But it is no exaggeration to say that this has
been the watershed year of our lives in the best possible of ways. Things and
people have fallen away, but what has taken their place is
everything we didn’t know we needed.

The other
day, we built new raised beds in our unused driveway. A truck dumped the
delivery of beautiful soil into a black and loamy heap on the sidewalk, and
neighbors came over with shovels, advice, cold beers, and spare seedlings.
We’re all planning for a big harvest trade, maybe a “family” grill-out with all
the folks on our ragtag block using the zucchinis soon to come in that over-abundant way that they do. Our backyard chickens have
been loud but prolific, and there are plenty of eggs for us all right now.

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Corbyn Hightower wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions for a just and sustainable world. Corbyn blogs at corbynhightower.com